A unique live cinematic and musical event, Tales from the Gimli Hospital: Reframed pairs acclaimed filmmaker Guy Maddin’s classic first feature film with a live performance—directed by Maddin himself—of a new score created by composer Matthew Patton, a superstar group of Icelandic musicians, acclaimed Seattle-based musical collective Aono Jikken Ensemble, and live electronics engineer Paul Corley. A cult sensation when it was released theatrically in 1988, the original Tales from the Gimli Hospital tells the dreamlike, elliptical story of the jealousy and madness instilled in two men sharing a hospital room in a remote Canadian village. The film first propelled Maddin to international prominence, becoming a success on the midnight movie circuit, and is now being completely transformed by this brand new performance.

With dramatic new narration written by Maddin and performed in a mixture of singing and speaking by the bewitching Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir (formerly of múm, and also known as Kria Brekkan), a hauntingly gorgeous string and vocals score performed by acclaimed Icelandic musicians Gyda Valtýsdóttir (cello), Borgar Magnason (double bass), and Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir (violin), and ingenious live “Foley” sound effects plus additional musical atmosphere created by the Aono Jikken Ensemble (Willliam Satake Blauvelt, Dean Moore, and Naho Shioya), the new score takes the original Gimli in an entirely new direction, with layers upon layers of music drawn from different sources reflecting the story-within-a-story structure of the film, and an ethereal tone that draws out the darkest and most haunting elements of the film, bringing Maddin’s original artwork to life in a sublime and unexpected new way. Lead curator: Lana Wilson.

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A Performa Commission with National Arts Centre of Canada, Co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, The Dedalus Foundation, Performa Producers Circle member Maurice Kanbar, and by Andrea Krantz. Production support provided by the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC).